TEAM HANDSOME’S EPIC ROAD TRIP 2K15

This is the first time I’ve posted something day of. It’s our dear friend Andy Tropin’s birthday in 7 minutes so I’m going to try to make this quick in time to celebrate with him on time:

We were off to a slow start this morning. Tropin woke us up at 10:45 having gone to bed super late the night before. We walked to Denver Biscuit Company for brunch. We waited an hour before being seated at 12:15. Madison White met us for brunch. Wekeela 2015! The gents all got The Franklin – chicken, cheddar, and bacon sandwiched between 2 fluffy biscuits and smothered in sausage gravy. So good!

After we finished we went back to Tropin’s place and hung out for a while. Julie ran an errand and Alex attempted to nap / did laundry. Tropin and I (and Julie before she left) watched the Miami/Nebraska game...

9:30 am – wake up, shower

10:30 am – get to Union Station in downtown Denver for brunch at Snooze. 45-50 minute wait, so we put our name down and explore that area of town. We walked by Coors Field which looked beautiful from the outside and all the bars and restaurants near the stadium.

11:15 am – got seated at Snooze. I had banana nutella french toast and alex had 2 delicious versions of eggs benedict. Delicious food but terrible service (screw you, Scooter).

12:30 pm – Denver mint!….closed on a Friday. So we walked around downtown and checked out the Colorado State Capitol building (beautiful), the park in front of the building, and the arts district.

2:30 pm – Stopped by the original Quiznos and then original Chipotle...

The Super 8 Travelodge was one of the worst places we’ve ever stayed, but we were both tired from the drive the day before we slept in until 9:30, skipping the free breakfast that I’m sure wasn’t that good. The plan for the day was Breaking Bad sites in ABQ, explore Santa Fe, and then drive up to Denver.

In ABQ we hit 3 key Breaking Bad spots – Los Pollos Hermanos, the car wash, and Walter White’s house. Los Pollos Hermanos was filmed in Twisters, a local burrito chain restaurant in the southwest. Alex and I looked like the typical tourists taking pictures outside and inside the restaurant. We each ordered a breakfast burrito and sat in the booth where Walter met Gus. So cool. Next we went to the car wash that the White’s purchased to front their money...

“Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.” Some robotic alarm woke us up super early at 5:15 am. I walked over to the phone in the kitchen to turn it off when it stopped suddenly. What a relief – back to bed….Until 6:15, when we were woken up by my uncle and their 2 dogs, panting and running around the kitchen next to the couches where we were sleeping. We attempted to go back to sleep until the 7 am alarm we had set, but with little success. We were motivated to get up when my aunt Lynn served us a delicious home-cooked breakfast of homemade challah French toast, bacon, coffee, strawberries and raspberries. This was the first home-cooked meal we had since we left my house in New Rochelle on August 26. That made an already incredible meal that much better.

Day 22 was a big drive...

We slept in until about 8 or so and left around 9 to get breakfast tacos at Tacodeli. Apparently, breakfast tacos are a HUGE thing in Austin because Dan Ecoff highly recommended Tacodeli while my cousin Sarah was all about Torchy’s. I looked into it and there have been debates about which one is better for several years. The guys at Tacodeli (sorry, Sarah) were super friendly and helpful. We each got 2 breakfast tacos, as recommended by one of the workers, and each of us also got the taco with chorizo, migas, avocado, cheese, and eggs as recommended by a different guy. They were phenomenal! Simple creations with fresh ingredients – tough to beat. And the raspberry pineapple juice I had was really nice too.

After breakfast we drove to where Sarah worked to drop off her house key that sh...

HOUSTON

7:45 – Got up, showered, saw Bonnie Ewing real quick, bye Brad’s house!

8:45 – Empire Cafe for breakfast with Brad…Omelette with bacon, onion, mozzarella, and avocado + fruit + potatoes – YUM!…BYE B-RAD!

10:15 – LBJ Space Center (NASA)

Tram tour @ 11 – saw original mission control for Apollo missions + astronaut training center (simulations for international space center, robotics) + Saturn 6 (HUGE rocket)

Large group of Asian tourists – very funny

Watched movie about history of space exploration…got to touch a sample of the moon (only 1 of 8 samples on display for people to touch throughout the world) that was 3.8 BILLION years old (Team Handsome FTW)

1:30 – BYE NASA!

KATY, TX

2:30 – Los Cucos Tex-Mex Restaurant – Fajitas a los Cucos + frozen margarita ($1...

Going to try something different for this post, as well. Excuse my creative urges. *Note – these events are not in order.

Actually left for Houston at 10:15 am.

B Dubs in Lafayette, LA for lunch. Super crowded because of Sunday NFL games.

Couldn’t see Bonnie Ewing that night because we came back to Brad’s house around 1:30 am and she was fast asleep.

Discovery Green Park. Lots of kids and families there. Really cool place for that kind of stuff.

Empty. This is what Houston is like on a Sunday evening after a Texans game.

Free parking on Sundays!

Going to Austin tomorrow to see my cousin Sarah Beck and old friend Dan Ecoff who we haven’t seen since 2011!

Homeless people (see Main Street).

I think Alex is fatter than I am, but he disagrees. Boy, is he wrong!

Just kidding! Alex kn...

Today was our most packed day so far. I’m going to try something different for today’s post.

What we did:

• Woke up @ 10:15
• Drove to Tulane – Tulane crew t-shirt and hung out with Robbie (beautiful campus)
• Back to Jay’s to pick up Tanya
• Took streetcar to French Quarter for lunch
• Walked by the river to Café Du Monde
• Walked Bourbon Street and Royal Street etc (FaceTimed w Chris Ashcroft, Chris Sherry, and Andrew Hilton in Scotland!)
• Amazing art – Jackson Square, galleries (“Blue Dog” by Rodrigue, incredible art on unlikely canvases)
• Frenchman Street
• Dinner
• Rebirth Brass Band @ Howlin Wolf
• Back to Bourbon Street
• Uber home (Mike, good dude) @ 2:45...

   We woke up around 7:15 am to say goodbye to Vanessa and get an early start to NOLA for the weekend. We got ready in record time and were on the road by 7:35 or so. The drive to Mobile, Alabama was fairly uneventful, except for driving through the time zone line in Louisiana, which was pretty cool (we watched our clocks change from 8:30 am to 7:30 am). The scenery was standard. Not much to report.

We hit Mobile at 10:30 am. We attempted to see the USS Alabama but there was a fee to get in, so we passed that up. However, we snagged a few pics of the ship from the highway. We then went to downtown Mobile and drove through aimlessly to explore...

THE BIG DAY IS FINALLY HERE! Shot up at 7:15 am when my alarm went off to get ready for the big drive. After packing some final things – because we had packed most of the car up the night before – and showering etc we left Miami around 8;15 am. Our first stop was Tampa, FL to have lunch with Sam Smith (not the Grammy-award winning singer, the girl that worked in creative arts at Wekeela in 2011). On the way to Tampa we got caught in some commuter traffic leaving Miami. We stopped to get gas at BJs, spoke to Ephram Caflun on speaker phone, and made a quick pitstop at Walgreens for caffeinated drinks, snacks, and caffeine pills.

We got to Sam’s house around 1:15 pm after driving over all 739 speed bumps between the end of the highway and Sam’s drive way...